t moment have been offered her choice,
whether she would be there or here, she would have elected to remain
where she was.

"I thought Cape Town a beastly place," declared Frank. "Nothing on
earth to do there, and they wanted me to wear a bell-topper hat on
Sunday."

Aletta broke into one of her whole-hearted laughs.

"That's the best definition I've ever heard," she said. "No, really, I
shall have to tell it to some of them next time I am down there again--
if ever I am."

"It's true, all the same," persisted Frank, looking remarkably pleased
with himself and the consciousness of having said a good thing. But his
mother told him he was talking nonsense, and proceeded with her
cross-examination of Aletta. Had she seen the Governor, and was he like
his portraits? and so on.

Oh, yes, she had seen him pretty often. Spoken to him? He had once or
twice, in a kindly conventional way, spoken to her, but she was certain
he would not know her from Eve if he were to see her again. There were
so many people he had to talk to in the same way at officially social
functions. But the point in this qualification was lost upon her
questioner, whose honest middle-class soul swelled with a congenial
respect for one who had actually talked with the Governor.

"Hallo! by George, there's someone coming!" exclaimed Frank, as the
raucous coughs of the one decrepit cur whose acquaintance we have
already made, together with a sound of hoofs, gave notice of the fact.
"Wonder who it is?"

May looked up quickly, a whole world of eager expectancy, of forestalled
disappointment in her glance. And as she did so she met the eyes of
Aletta.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

TWO VERDICTS AND SOME RANCOUR.

"Hallo, Colvin!" cried Frank, going out on the stoep. "Why, man, we had
begun to think you were dead."

"So?" said Colvin Kershaw, who was busy loosening the girths preparatory
to off-saddling. "Whose cart is that, Frank? Looks like Stephanus'."

"It is."

"Is he here then?"

"No; only the girls."

"Which of them?"

"All three."

"Oh--. No, don't have him put in the camp," as a Hottentot came up to
take the horse. "Just knee-halter him, and let him run. He can pick up
enough round the house."

As he entered, and greeted the girls, a subtle instinct told him that
two of them were watching each other and him. May's reception of him
was somewhat brusque and rather too studiously off-handed. He read her
face like the page